The Kept-Up Academic Librarian

Columbia Latest To Consider Gender Neutral Dorms

Columbia University becomes one of the latest universities to adopt co-ed rooming, which would allow students of opposite sexes to live together on campus, Columbia University spokesman Robert Hornsby told CNN. If the proposal is approved by administrators, the Ivy League university will join an estimated 30 universities and colleges across the country that have already taken the plunge and offer "gender-neutral" housing. Read more at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/12/10/columbia.coed.dorms/

Real Estate Slump Allows IHEs To Expand Their Campuses

Columbia university snapped up the Arbor, a nine-story building at 235th Street and the Henry Hudson Parkway, in July 2008 for $67 million after the developer struggled to sell the condominiums.  Other colleges have taken advantage of the real estate slump to push expansion plans. In Providence, R.I., Johnson & Wales University signed a lease this year on a four-story condominium building with river views and granite-and-stainless-steel kitchens. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/nyregion/07columbia.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

This Dorm Put Its Books Behind Bars

The students who have long cherished the small library inside Dunster House, Harvard’s oldest dormitory, discovered a new feature there this week: two brass bars stretching across nearly every shelf, making the books impossible to peruse. The unannounced change - in effect making the library into a kind of museum of hardbacks - astonished those who revere the musty collection and have become accustomed to indulging in its broad span of history, fiction, and other genres. Dunster officials have since apologized to concerned students and have explained that the bars were needed as a temporary way to protect the books - some of them highly valuable volumes or irreplaceable first editions signed by authors - after it appeared that several works had been stolen. Read more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/09/30/bars_on_books_jar_harvard_students/

Add The Eco-Dorm To Specialty Campus Housing

In recent years, colleges like Warren Wilson took a leading role in the sustainability movement, which seeks to foster a durable human relationship with the environment. The EcoDorm is one of only two student residences that have LEED’s platinum rating, its highest. Two Warren Wilson students first proposed the dorm a decade ago. Undergraduates on the planning committee initially suggested that it be built with corncobs or straw bales. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/magazine/27Ecodorm-t.html?_r=1

Even At $5,000 More These Luxury Dorms Go Fast

 Inside this pricey new residence hall, Purdue University students enjoy maid service and private bathrooms. Each room has its own climate-control panel, and students don't even have to confer about the settings. There are no roommates. For these amenities and more, students or their parents pay a premium of $5,000 per year above typical room and board costs. Yet in the depths of a recession, the 356 spots at First Street Towers residential hall sold out in two days. Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-purdue-posh-dorms-17-sep17,0,1040772.story

Learning Dorms Attract More Students

For a growing number of students arriving on college campuses across Michigan this week, their new residences will be a truly immersive experience. More students are choosing to live in learning communities on campus. While the programs often go by different names -- living-learning dorms, residential colleges, among them -- they all offer the chance for students with similar academic pursuits or lifestyle interests to live together. The University of Michigan already boasts nine living/learning communities. The number of students in such housing is inching toward 20 percent, up from last year's 17 percent. Read more at:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090901/SCHOOLS/909010362/1026/rss06

Welcome To Your New Luxury Dorm

Despite the million-dollar vista, this is not the penthouse suite of a four-star hotel or a luxury condominium in the Back Bay. It’s the common room of a Boston University dorm, perhaps the most opulent residence hall to ever grace the local college landscape. The view is not the only amenity. So luxurious is the 960-bed dorm that parents’ jaws dropped in disbelief when they helped their children move in last week. The suites of singles and doubles, with elegantly furnished common rooms, large private baths, walk-in closets, and floor-length mirrors, resemble nothing like what older generations remember of their college housing. Read more at: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/02/bu_dorm_offers_a_study_in_luxury/

Former Hotel Finds New Role As College Dorm

A downtown hotel is finding new life as housing for students attending University of Michigan-Flint, Mott Community College and Baker College. The 16-story, 340,000-square-foot Riverfront Residence Hall opens Wednesday after undergoing a $20 million renovation. The bottom eight floors will house about 250 students and a planned second phase will make room on the top eight floors for another 550 students.
The building opened in 1981 as the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-downtownstudentho,0,7822130.story

Student Builds Cabin On Campus But Not Allowed To Live There

It appears a University at Buffalo student's makeshift transcendental retreat is at an end.Brian Borncamp, 21, voluntarily decided to leave his camp site and homemade cabin Monday in the woods near the university's North Campus in Amherst, according to a statement from Vice President for Student Affairs Dennis Black. The UB philosophy and computer science major had been building the cabin since May, when he decided he could no longer afford to pay both rent and tuition. But UB administrators late last week told him he had until Monday to clear out. Read more at:
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/774902.html

Its Like Match.Com For Dorm Assignments

Like most colleges with residence halls, UIC makes an effort to pair first-year roommates who are compatible, often taking into consideration personality assessments and lifestyle questionnaires, among other factors. But some matches still result in disaster. To minimize the horror stories, a small but growing number of schools, including DePaul University, are inserting online technology into the equation. They are setting up their own social networking sites, instructing students to create a profile and select a roommate for themselves -- like Match.com for dorms. Read more at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/family/chi-dorm-matchmakers-20-aug20,0,5352359.story